Anzac Biscuits

 

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

 

These biscuits were traditionally baked by wives and mothers during the First World War and sent packed in food parcels to the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). They don’t contain any eggs so they survived the long journey. ANZAC Day is celebrated on 25th April.

 

They are delightfully chewy and the coconut provides a lovely toasty nutty tropical flavour and texture. They contain rolled oats so they are sort of in-keeping with our healthy eating regime, providing valuable fibre! Unfortunately, although coconut is actually part of a fruit, it's nutritionally classified as a nut so it doesn't count towards fruit and veg portions, but at least it contains similar nutrients to nuts!

 

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

For my first batch I followed the recipe and used teaspoons of the biscuit mixture, but these turned out quite small and very thin. So for the second and third batch I made the balls about the size of a walnut and they were a better size and thickness (on the left of the photo). I increased the cooking time by a couple of minutes.

 

TASTE TEST:

They were incredibly easy to make and got big thumbs up from everyone. Steve’s Mum said she’d heard of Anzac biscuits from watching Home & Away and Neighbours! Steve said they’d be even nicer topped with melted chocolate.

 

 

• Makes: 24-28
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 3/325°F/170°C
• Oven shelf: middle
• Cooking time: 10 minutes per batch

 

Ingredients:

• 100g rolled oats
• 60g plain flour
• 45g desiccated coconut (I used Waitrose)
• 95g light brown sugar
• 75g butter
• 2 Tablespoons golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 Tablespoon boiling water

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 3/325°F/170°C.
2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper/Magic liner.
3. Combine the oats, flour, coconut and sugar in a large bowl.
4. Place the butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan and melt over a medium heat, stirring until well mixed, then remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
5. Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the Tablespoon of boiling water in a small cup, then add this to the melted butter and syrup. Tip the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.
6. Place teaspoons of the biscuit mixture onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 5cm space between them so they can spread. Bake for 10 minutes for the smaller biscuits and 12 minutes for the larger ones, or until they are evenly golden brown.
7. Use a fish slice to lift the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool - they will be very soft but they will firm up as they cool down.

Keema Pie with rosti topping

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

 

I’ve had a keema pie recipe from a really old issue of Delicious magazine sitting in my recipe folder for quite a while, but never got around to making it. It’s basically an Indian version of shepherds/cottage pie. What prompted me to try it was seeing another recipe in the April issue of Delicious which had a rosti topping instead of mash. Steve isn’t a huge fan of potatoes, so I consulted him on what his preference was and he decided that the rosti topping would be the lesser of two evils!

 

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

The new recipe uses lamb mince, but the old recipe uses beef mince, so it seems that they’re interchangeable. I used beef mince as that’s what I had available, but I only had 500g instead of the 750g the recipe said to use. I also substituted the 5 large skinned vine tomatoes for a tin of plum tomatoes as it was more convenient.

 

I only used about 1½ green chilies as they were really hot when I tasted a sample, so I also omitted the ½ teaspoon of hot chili powder as I have a tendency to make food too hot! But the finished dish wasn’t all that hot and I think using all the chili and the powder would have been OK.

 

MY SKIN IS ON FIRE!

I suffered really badly from the chili burning the skin on my hands, so I did a search on Google and I found the solution of rubbing salt onto my hands. I used coarse sea salt and I rubbed it on dry, which worked quite well and removed the really stinging burning sensation. But I discovered there was still some chili on my skin when I went to take my contact lenses out and my eyeballs started burning! So I used the salt again using wet hands and it seemed to have worked as it didn’t hurt when I put my contacts in this morning. So next time I will chop the garlic, ginger and chilies in my mini chopper to avoid so much contact with my skin!

 

TASTE TEST:

We both really liked the flavour of the mince as the spices were really nice, but it was a bit too watery. Next time I will leave the lid off the pan when simmering. I would also leave out the spinach, as even though I squeezed out the water I’m sure it released more water when baking. The old keema pie recipe uses peas instead, which is a much better idea and actually more traditional.

 

We were both disappointed with the rosti topping as it didn’t go very crispy, even though I’d also shoved the pie under the grill. Steve thinks the sweet potato was to blame. Making this topping was sooooo much extra work and totally not worth the effort! So next time I would just use a mash potato topping, or even just serve the mince with some rice.

 

The recipe below is how I made it and not the actual recipe from the magazine.

• Serves: 4
• Takes: 1 hour 45 minutes to make
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C

 

Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• Knob of fresh ginger, grated
• 2 long green chilies, deseeded and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoon coriander seeds
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ½ teaspoon hot chili powder
• 500g beef mince
• 300ml beef stock (I used Knorr Touch of Taste)
• 400g tin peeled plum tomatoes, discard the juice
• 200g spinach
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 medium potato, coarsely grated
• 1 medium sweet potato, coarsely grated
• 1 medium onion, finely sliced

 

Directions:

1. Heat 2 Tablespoons of the oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion, season well and fry until softened. Add the finely garlic, ginger and green chilies and fry for a couple of minutes.
2. In a separate pan, dry-fry the cumin and coriander seeds until fragrant, then crush in a pestle and mortar with the turmeric and chili powder until finely ground. Add to the onion mixture and fry for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the mince, increase the heat and fry for about 10 minutes until the meat is brown, Drain off the excess fat, then add the stock and tomatoes, breaking them up as you mix them in. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the meat is cooked and the sauce has thickened slightly (remove the lid if it’s too watery).
4. Put the spinach in a colander over a large saucepan and pour over a kettle of boiling water, then refresh in cold water. Squeeze out the excess water. Stir through the curry with the lemon juice and garam masala and season to taste.
5. Put the pan of hot water that you used to wilt the spinach on the heat and bring back to the boil, then place the potato, sweet potato and onion into it and blanch for 30 seconds. Drain, then tip into a clean tea towel and squeeze out all the excess liquid. Place in a bowl and toss with the remaining oil and season.
6. Tip the keema into a large ovenproof dish and top with the blanched rosti topping.
7. Bake for 30 minutes at Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C until the rosti is golden on top – place under a hot grill for 5 minutes if it’s still not brown enough!

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• This dish can be frozen at stage 6. Bake for 40 minutes from frozen at Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C.

Making fresh pasta – wide ribbons

 

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

 

So far I’ve used my pasta machine to make spaghetti and taglioni (thin ribbon pasta) and ravioli and tortellini (filled pasta) and you can see my efforts here.

 

For my birthday Steve’s sister cooked us a dish of meatballs and pappardelle pasta, which we really enjoyed as it was thick and wide. So we decided to have a go at making something similar using the lasagnette cutter on the pasta machine which is 12mm wide.

 

I made some pasta dough using 200g of ‘00’ flour and 2 large eggs, plus about ½ tablespoon of olive oil. I just mixed it all in a large bowl and then kneaded the dough on a board until it was smooth and elastic. Then I wrapped the dough in cling film and chilled until I was ready to cut the pasta (a couple of hours).

 

Steve helped me to roll the pasta through the machine and cut the pasta:

1. We split the dough into 3 balls.
2. We rolled each ball into a sheet up to the 3rd thinnest setting as we wanted it quite thick.
3. We dusted the sheets with flour on both sides and then left them, covered loosely with a dry cloth, to dry out a little before cutting into ribbons. We’d learned from our previous attempts that you need to dust with flour quite a lot to prevent the pasta from sticking together.
4. We cut the pasta into ribbons and then dusted with a bit more flour before laying them out onto the board, covered loosely with a dry cloth, to dry out before cooking. 

To cook the pasta:

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add salt.
2. Add the fresh pasta and when the water comes back to the boil, put a timer on for 2 minutes.
3. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the cooking water to add to the sauce.

 

Here’s the dish I created using some leftover sauce from a Beef and Ale Stew I’d made and stashed in the freezer. I’m naughty and don’t tend to label what I put in the freezer, so it ends up being “mystery food” and I thought the sauce had some beef left in it but it was just sauce. Luckily Steve’s Mum had got some steak out of the freezer so I used that!

 

Unfortunately I slightly overcooked the steak as I added it back to the pan too early.

 

Here’s what I should have done:

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large pan. Fry the steak on both sides for a couple of minutes until the meat is rare. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. Add sliced mushrooms to the pan and fry until soft and golden.
3. Add the sauce and a dash of double cream, then add the cooked pasta and blanched sugar snap peas. Mix thoroughly, season with salt and pepper and add any pasta water if necessary to create a nice sauce.
4. Slice the steak and add to the pan just before serving.

 

It was still a really good meal and we really enjoyed our home-made fresh pasta! We’ll definitely be making it again.

 

This amount of pasta made enough for 2 servings plus seconds.